# Central Sahel Crisis - Canonical dossier: [Web edition]() - Markdown edition: [Plain-text edition]() - Issue: Issue 007 - Rubric: Two Maps / Two Ledgers - Byline: Totally Fine Foundation editorial desk - Reading time: 11 min - Last reviewed: 2026-08-20 > Almost every number you have read about the Central Sahel belongs to a larger map — one that folds in Nigeria and Chad and calls it the same crisis. Underneath the aggregation, three countries carry 2.8 million people displaced inside their own borders, and two kinds of killing that no one should average together. ## Cover - Kicker: Field dossier / Africa / active crisis - Cover lines: 2.8 million displaced in three countries — 2.1 million in Burkina Faso alone. / The single deadliest documented incident was the army's, not the jihadists'. / One region, two ledgers: the Central Sahel, and the Sahel that swallows it. / The Sahel holds 41 percent of Africa's militant-Islamist deaths — a Pentagon count. #### Hero visual provenance - Caption: Hawa Maiga, displaced within Mali, at a WFP site in Bamako (archival, February 2013). Three countries now carry 2.8 million people displaced inside their own borders. - Alt text: An internally displaced woman at a WFP site in Bamako, Mali. - Credit: DFID — UK Department for International Development - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Metrics ### 2.8M — Internally displaced, Central Sahel (three-country) - Category: displacement / IDPs - Caveat: 2.1M in Burkina Faso, 415k Mali, 283k western Niger; +444,400 refugees (29 Apr 2026). Do NOT substitute the Sahel-wide 5.8M that folds in Nigeria and Chad. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: A three-country count, not a regional one. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two displacement maps. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 2,640 — Conflict deaths, Central Sahel (Q1 2026) - Category: human cost / humanitarian - Caveat: OCHA aggregate for Jan–Mar 2026, alongside 1,179 security incidents. Deaths and incidents are separate units; not disaggregated by country or actor. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`) ### 2.7M — Acute food insecurity (IPC 3+), Central Sahel - Category: food security - Caveat: Of 11.4M needing critical food assistance; 401,000 children in severe acute malnutrition (29 Apr 2026). NOT the Sahel-wide 15.4M projection; Burkina ran no Cadre Harmonisé session, so it under-counts. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`); [World Food Programme — West Africa / Central Sahel emergency — assistance ledger]() (`sah-wfp-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: On the three-country map, and under-counted. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: Central Sahel food insecurity. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 41% — Sahel share of Africa's militant-Islamist deaths, 2025 - Category: human cost / share - Caveat: US-DoD-linked Africa Center; of an Africa-wide 23,968 (Burkina ~50%, Mali \>29%, Niger ~17% within the Sahel). A fatality share, not a displacement count; led all regions five years. **Source trail:** [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: A Pentagon count, attributed as such. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 41 per cent. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 1,800+ — Documented civilian killings, Burkina Faso (all sides) - Category: human cost / documented - Caveat: HRW, since 2023, more than 1,200 attributed to state forces. A documented-incident floor, not a comprehensive toll; the largest single incident is state-force (400+, near Djibo). **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Attributed and unequal — the largest incident is the state's. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two abuse axes. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 1,200+ — Deadliest region, 2025 (Tillabéri, Niger) - Category: human cost / event data - Caveat: ACLED recorded fatalities — led by the Islamic State's Sahel Province, then the Nigerien military, then JNIM. An event/fatality unit, not OCHA humanitarian counts; a Tillabéri figure, not an all-Sahel total. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview]() (`sah-acled-2026`) ## The region that is counted twice. ### The region that is counted twice Start with the number, because the number is the trap. The Central Sahel — Burkina Faso, Mali and western Niger — held 2.8 million people displaced inside their own countries as of late April 2026, alongside 444,400 refugees. That figure is not the one most reports reach for. OCHA publishes two products for the same date: this three-country overview, and a Sahel-wide dashboard that folds in Nigeria and Chad and puts displacement at 5.8 million. Inside the three-country frame, the weight is not spread evenly: of the 2.8 million displaced, 2.1 million are in Burkina Faso alone — roughly three-quarters — with 415,000 in Mali and 283,000 in western Niger, and the regional total quietly hides that concentration. The discipline this dossier keeps is to say which map each number belongs to. The Central Sahel is real; the Sahel that swallows it is a different measurement. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`); [UNHCR — Sahel emergency — narrative and Operational Data Portal]() (`sah-unhcr-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Which map does each number belong to? - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two displacement maps. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Two ledgers of the dead, and why they cannot be added The killing is counted by instruments that measure different things. OCHA logged 2,640 conflict deaths and 1,179 security incidents across the three countries in the first quarter of 2026 — a humanitarian aggregate that names no perpetrator. ACLED counts the same war a different way, and in its reading the deadliest single region of the Central Sahel in 2025 was Niger's Tillabéri, with more than 1,200 recorded fatalities, led by the Islamic State's Sahel Province, then the Nigerien military, then JNIM — state-force killing counted in the same ledger, without equating it to jihadist attack. A US Department of Defense institution, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, keeps a third count and reports that the Sahel held 41 per cent of all militant-Islamist-linked deaths in Africa in 2025 — a share it has held for five straight years. These are separate units — humanitarian deaths, coded events, fatality shares — and the moment they are summed the count becomes fiction. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`); [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview]() (`sah-acled-2026`); [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Three instruments, three units, never summed. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: Tillabéri fatalities. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The abuses no one should average The record of who kills civilians is documented on two axes, and the honesty is in keeping them attributed and unequal. Human Rights Watch, after interviewing more than 450 people, found that in Burkina Faso the military, its allied militias and JNIM together killed more than 1,800 civilians since 2023 — a floor it calls possibly the tip of the iceberg. The single largest incident in that record is a state-force one: the Burkinabè military and allied militias killed more than 400 civilians near Djibo in December 2023. The deadliest single jihadist massacre HRW verified is smaller — at least 133 civilians killed by JNIM at Barsalogho in August 2024. In Mali the pattern is army-plus-Wagner: HRW documented dozens of summary executions and enforced disappearances of ethnic Fulani men since January 2025. Amnesty keeps a parallel ledger and names the same perpetrators separately — at least 58 unarmed civilians killed by the military and its VDP militia at Solenzo, around 60 of 100 detainees shot by the Malian army and Wagner near Kwala, and, in the other columns, roughly 34 civilians killed by the Islamic State in the Sahel and about 100 soldiers by GSIM at Djibo. Both organisations are advocacy monitors, not courts; their characterisations are theirs, attributed, and the juntas reject them. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`); [Amnesty International — Human Rights in West and Central Africa]() (`sah-amnesty-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: The largest single incident is the state's. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two abuse axes. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The war that moved into the capitals The insurgency has climbed from the countryside into the cities, and the International Crisis Group reads it as one interlocking system rather than three local fights. In September 2025 JNIM cut the fuel supply to Bamako — a city of over four million — impeding commerce for months; by 2026 a siege of the capital's roads had followed, with three main routes into Bamako blocked since late April. In the first half of 2025 the group laid siege to as many as forty towns in Burkina Faso, and Crisis Group assesses that it now controls vast areas of Mali and runs a light administration that levies taxes and dispenses its own justice. Niger's situation Crisis Group calls not so dire, yet in late January 2026 the Islamic State in the Sahel struck the country's main airport and military base. The Africa Center attributes 78 per cent of the region's militant-Islamist-linked fatalities in 2025 to the JNIM coalition — its own analytical coding of event data, not a legal finding. **Source trail:** [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`); [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: The war climbed into the cities. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the Bamako siege. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Sovereignty, and the account it does not settle The three governments are coup-installed juntas that formed the Alliance of Sahel States, and their case is recorded here strictly as a position. They frame the coups and the pivot from France and ECOWAS toward Russia as restored sovereignty and a more effective security strategy, and in December 2025 they launched a 5,000-strong joint force headquartered in Niamey — first units operational, but far from full capacity. Burkina Faso's junta dismissed the report that its forces had killed some 1,800 civilians as conjecture. The record the juntas contest keeps accumulating: in June 2026 all three states deposited notifications to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, effective a year later, which Amnesty frames as entrenching impunity. Wagner announced the end of its Mali deployment in June 2025, but analysts assess its personnel largely folded into the Russian-defence-ministry-run Africa Corps — the label changed, the partnership did not. Whether security has been restored is the central contested claim of this crisis, and the independent monitors do not support it. **Source trail:** [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`); [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`); [Amnesty International — Human Rights in West and Central Africa]() (`sah-amnesty-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: The contested record keeps accumulating. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: three states leaving the ICC. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Actors and positions ### JNIM (Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin) - Role: Al-Qaeda-aligned coalition, the dominant insurgent actor across Mali, Burkina Faso and western Niger. - Confidence: high - Position: Presents itself as waging jihad to impose Sharia and expel 'occupiers,' and frames blockades like the September 2025 Bamako fuel siege as pressure to force government change. - Supporter framing: Casts its campaign as resistance to foreign influence and corrupt states. - Opposing account: Juntas and ECOWAS class it as terrorism; the UN Security Council sanctions it. - Independent assessment: ACLED and the Africa Center attribute the largest share of the region's militant-Islamist-linked fatalities to it — the highest-evidential-weight insurgent actor, running a light administration across areas it controls. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview]() (`sah-acled-2026`); [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`); [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`) ### Islamic State – Sahel Province (ISSP) - Role: IS affiliate in the Mali–Niger–Burkina tri-border zone and JNIM's open rival. - Confidence: high - Position: Pursues a competing caliphate project against both states and JNIM. - Supporter framing: Frames itself as the authentic global-caliphate vanguard. - Opposing account: Both states and JNIM treat it as an enemy; it is UN-sanctioned. - Independent assessment: ACLED records it as a distinct, smaller-but-lethal actor concentrated in western Niger and eastern Mali — in 2025 the lead driver of fatalities in Niger's Tillabéri. Its rivalry with JNIM is a core reason regional aggregation misleads. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview]() (`sah-acled-2026`) ### AES military governments (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) - Role: Coup-installed juntas forming the Alliance of Sahel States. - Confidence: high - Position: Frame the coups and the pivot from France and ECOWAS toward Russia as restored sovereignty and better security; launched a 5,000-strong joint force in December 2025. - Supporter framing: Present the break with France and ECOWAS as long-overdue self-determination. - Opposing account: ECOWAS, the UN and rights groups say security has deteriorated and that state forces alongside Russian fighters commit large-scale atrocities. - Independent assessment: Burkina Faso's junta dismissed the ~1,800-civilian-killing report as conjecture; HRW and Amnesty document those killings, and all three states filed to leave the ICC in June 2026. Both state-force and jihadist abuses are documented and separately attributed. Whether security has been restored is not supported by the monitors. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`); [Amnesty International — Human Rights in West and Central Africa]() (`sah-amnesty-2026`); [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`) ### Russia (Wagner Group / Africa Corps) - Role: External security partner embedded with Malian forces since December 2021. - Confidence: medium - Position: Presented by Moscow and the juntas as an effective counter-terrorism partner, with Wagner's June 2025 exit framed as a handover to the defence-ministry-run Africa Corps. - Supporter framing: Frames the partnership as sovereignty-respecting security cooperation. - Opposing account: Rights bodies tie Malian-army-plus-Russian operations to repeated Fulani executions. - Independent assessment: HRW and OHCHR tie army-plus-Russian operations to repeated Fulani executions through 2024–2025; analysts assess the June 2025 transition as continuity under a rebrand, not departure — the label changed, the partnership did not. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`) ### Civilians, IDPs and pastoralist communities (especially Fulani) - Role: The population bearing the crisis, targeted by multiple armed actors and displaced in millions. - Confidence: high - Position: Communities seek safety, protection and an end to collective targeting; Fulani in particular report being targeted on suspicion of jihadist ties. - Supporter framing: Humanitarian and rights actors emphasise protection and the conflict, not climate, as the core driver. - Opposing account: Armed actors on all sides cast civilian harm as unavoidable or the other side's doing. - Independent assessment: OCHA reports about 2.8 million IDPs and 444,400 refugees with insecurity the main driver; UNHCR and OCHA identify conflict and protection failures, not primarily climate, as the core driver. The side with the heaviest documented evidential weight as victims, not a belligerent. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`); [UNHCR — Sahel emergency — narrative and Operational Data Portal]() (`sah-unhcr-2026`) ## Claims and evidence ### The AES military governments are restoring security. - Claimant: AES military governments - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: Independent monitors document fatalities rising after the coups and JNIM blockading the Malian capital. - Independent assessment: Disputed: ACLED and the Africa Center document the Sahel as the world's deadliest region for militant-Islamist violence, and JNIM's September 2025 fuel blockade brought Bamako to a standstill. A reported 2025 fall in Burkina fatalities is disputed against reports of mass civilian killing by state forces. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview]() (`sah-acled-2026`); [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`); [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`) ### The withdrawal of France (Barkhane) and the UN (MINUSMA) caused the crisis. - Claimant: Common single-cause framing - Evidence status: likely - Counterclaim: The insurgency predates the 2022–2023 withdrawals by a decade. - Independent assessment: Likely partial, false as a single cause: the crisis cycle opened with the 2012 Mali coup and JNIM formed in 2017; the drawdown plausibly removed counter-terror capacity and coincided with escalation, but is at most an accelerant, not the origin. **Source trail:** [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`); [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`) ### Sahel displacement is mainly climate migration, not conflict. - Claimant: Common reframing - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: OCHA and UNHCR identify armed conflict and protection failures at the core. - Independent assessment: Disputed: OCHA states the crisis is driven by armed conflict, mass displacement and collapsing services; UNHCR calls it a volatile mix of conflict, hunger and climate change with conflict and protection at the core and climate a compounding stressor. **Source trail:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`); [UNHCR — Sahel emergency — narrative and Operational Data Portal]() (`sah-unhcr-2026`) ### Russia's Wagner Group has withdrawn from Mali. - Claimant: Moscow and the juntas - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: Analysts concur the personnel largely transferred to the defence-ministry-run Africa Corps. - Independent assessment: Disputed as true-but-misleading: 'Wagner is leaving' is literally true, but 'Russia is withdrawing' is misleading — continuity under a rebrand, with the same operations and, monitors say, the same abuses. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`) ## Language record ### UN OCHA - Role: Central Sahel Humanitarian Overview - Context: The three-country aggregate for January to March 2026 — deaths and incidents as separate units. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview]() (`sah-ocha-2026`) ### ACLED - Role: Africa Overview - Context: On 2025, surpassing all other regions of Mali and Burkina Faso. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview]() (`sah-acled-2026`) ### Human Rights Watch - Role: On Burkina Faso - Context: On the military, its allied militias and an al-Qaeda-linked group together — a documented floor. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)]() (`sah-hrw-2026`) ### Amnesty International - Role: On Solenzo - Context: One column of a ledger that names each perpetrator separately. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Amnesty International — Human Rights in West and Central Africa]() (`sah-amnesty-2026`) ### International Crisis Group - Role: Briefing B209 - Context: On the first half of 2025 — an expert assessment, not an incident log. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals]() (`sah-icg-2026`) ### Africa Center for Strategic Studies - Role: US Department of Defense research center - Context: A US-government vantage point, attributed as such — a fatality share, not a displacement count. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking]() (`sah-africacenter-2026`) ## Timeline ### 2021-05-25 — Mali coup — second military takeover in nine months - Event type: conflict\_escalation - Confidence: high Malian military officers conducted the country's second coup in nine months, deposing the transitional president. The instability paved the way for closer ties with Russia and eventual French military withdrawal. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Sahel Region — ACLED Data]() (`src-sahel-acled`); [International Crisis Group — Sahel Security Crisis — International Crisis Group]() (`src-sahel-icg`) ### 2024-01-28 — Alliance of Sahel States (AES) formed; withdrawal from ECOWAS - Event type: international\_response - Confidence: high Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger formally established the Alliance of Sahel States and announced withdrawal from ECOWAS, consolidating a bloc oriented toward Russia and away from Western security partnerships. **Source trail:** [International Crisis Group — Sahel Security Crisis — International Crisis Group]() (`src-sahel-icg`); [UNOCHA — Sahel Crisis Response — UNOCHA]() (`src-sahel-ocha`) ### 2026-05-01 — Record civilian casualties in Q1 2026 — Burkina Faso worst affected - Event type: casualty\_update - Confidence: high ACLED Q1 2026 data showed Burkina Faso registered the highest number of political violence events in the Sahel, with jihadist attacks on villages and markets in the Sahel and Est regions accounting for the majority of an estimated 3,200 civilian deaths in the quarter. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Sahel Region — ACLED Data]() (`src-sahel-acled`); [UNOCHA — Sahel Crisis Response — UNOCHA]() (`src-sahel-ocha`) ### 2026-07-31 — Health Cluster Mali funding at 36.9% by 31 July - Event type: humanitarian\_access - Confidence: medium According to the Health Cluster Mali July 2026 bulletin, the Mali Humanitarian Response Plan remained substantially underfunded, with 36.9% of Health Cluster resources mobilized by 31 July 2026. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sahel-securi-editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-07-31 — Health Cluster Mali bulletin reports volatile security and critical conditions - Event type: displacement\_update - Confidence: medium According to the Health Cluster Mali July 2026 bulletin, security conditions remained volatile in northern and central Mali, with continued population movements; humanitarian conditions in some intervention areas were critical, exacerbated by armed violence, forced displacement, and climate-change effects. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sahel-securi-editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-07-31 — Kidal security incidents disrupt health access in Gao, per Health Cluster Mali - Event type: humanitarian\_access - Confidence: medium Per the Health Cluster Mali July 2026 bulletin, security incidents in the Kidal region limited population access to health facilities in Gao and disrupted continuity of essential services, contributing to deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gao. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sahel-securi-editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-07-31 — Displaced people recorded in Mali in July 2026, per Health Cluster Mali - Event type: displacement\_update - Confidence: medium Mali's Directorate-General of Health and Public Hygiene recorded displaced people in July 2026, according to the Health Cluster Mali July 2026 bulletin. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sahel-securi-editorial-2026-08`) ## Visual essay ### Gallery image 01 #### Visual provenance - Caption: Displacement is a three-country count of 2.8 million — 2.1 million in Burkina Faso — that most reporting silently swaps for a regional one. - Alt text: People displaced by conflict receiving food rations in Bamako, Mali. - Credit: DFID — UK Department for International Development - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Gallery image 02 #### Visual provenance - Caption: The food ledger runs in its own column: 11.4 million need critical food assistance across the three countries, 2.7 million in acute crisis or worse. - Alt text: A sack of food aid awaiting distribution at a WFP site in Bamako, Mali. - Credit: DFID — UK Department for International Development - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Linked visual references ### Crimes against humanity by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali) - Photographer: Human Rights Watch - Publisher: Human Rights Watch - Recognition: Field investigation, 450+ interviews - Why it matters: The field record that keeps the two axes of abuse attributed and unequal — and finds the single largest documented incident is a state-force one. - Original: [Open reference]() #### The abuses no one should average. Human Rights Watch reads the Sahel as a ledger of who killed whom, and refuses to let one side absorb the other's guilt. Every number carries a name, an attribution, a date. The reference matters because the region's violence is routinely flattened into 'jihadist terrorism.' HRW's record shows the state and its allied militias killing more civilians in Burkina Faso than the jihadists it fights, at the largest single documented incident. It is an advocacy monitor, not a court; its characterisations of 'crimes against humanity' and 'command responsibility' are its own, attributed, and the juntas reject them. This dossier carries the figures as documented floors, not comprehensive tolls. ## Media desk ### Burkina Faso – Mali – Niger tri-border region - Publisher: Wikimedia Commons - Creator: Wikimedia Commons contributors - Date: Maintained file - Media type: map - Rights mode: direct\_image - Placement: Orientation map / the two maps - Caption: The whole discipline of this file is on this map: the Central Sahel — Burkina Faso, Mali, western Niger — is a different measurement from the Sahel that folds in Nigeria and Chad. - Why it matters: A rights-safe orientation base that shows why regional aggregation misleads — the belt is continent-wide; the crisis is three countries. The map belongs first because the number is the trap. Reporting reaches for a Sahel-wide displacement figure and lays it over three countries; the map is where that swap becomes visible. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The Sahel as an ecological belt across the continent — the map that swallows the Central Sahel. This is geography, not the security theatre; the three-country crisis sits inside it. - Alt text: Map of the Sahel region of Africa. - Credit: Wikimedia Commons contributors - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The region that is counted twice - Publisher: UN OCHA and UNHCR - Creator: Totally Fine Foundation - Date: 2026 - Media type: infographic - Rights mode: linked\_reference\_only - Placement: Displacement data surface - Caption: The single most important discipline in reading the Sahel: which map does each number belong to? The Central Sahel is real; the Sahel that swallows it is a different measurement. - Why it matters: Substituting the Sahel-wide figure for the three-country one is the region's defining error class; the surface holds the two apart. The surface exists because the aggregation is where the meaning leaks out. A three-country displacement of 2.8 million becomes a regional 5.8 million, and the concentration in Burkina Faso disappears into the average. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: One region, two ledgers: 2.8 million displaced in the Central Sahel (three countries), against a Sahel-wide 5.8 million that folds in Nigeria and Chad. Most reporting substitutes one for the other. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: Central Sahel 2.8 million displaced against a Sahel-wide 5.8 million. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Source readings ### The region that is counted twice. - Registry ID: `sah-ocha-2026` - Publisher: UN OCHA - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-04-29 - Registry title: Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview - Editorial note: The Central Sahel compressed into one quarterly ledger — kept apart from the Sahel-wide dashboard. - Original: [Open source]() OCHA publishes two products for the same date, and the discipline is to say which map each number belongs to. Its three-country overview records 2.8 million people displaced inside Burkina Faso, Mali and western Niger as of late April 2026 — 2.1 million in Burkina Faso alone — alongside 444,400 refugees, with 2,640 conflict deaths and 1,179 security incidents in the first quarter of 2026 and 401,000 children in severe acute malnutrition. The response is funded at 28 per cent. That is not the number most reports reach for. OCHA's companion Sahel-wide dashboard folds in Nigeria and Chad and puts displacement at 5.8 million and food insecurity at 15.4 million — figures that must not be substituted for the three-country ones. The flatness of the sheet is the point; the concentration underneath it is not evenly spread. #### Takeaways - Three-country figures kept strictly apart from the Sahel-wide dashboard (5.8M IDPs, 15.4M IPC 3+, US$3.7B). - Deaths and security incidents are separate units, not disaggregated by country or actor. - Rolling — date every figure; the response is 28 per cent funded against a US$215M Central Sahel ask. #### Visual provenance - Caption: Say which map each number belongs to. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: Central Sahel 2.8M vs Sahel-wide 5.8M. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original sources linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A live counter, and a frozen number inside it. - Registry ID: `sah-unhcr-2026` - Publisher: UNHCR - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-06-29 - Registry title: Sahel emergency — narrative and Operational Data Portal - Editorial note: A live regional counter carrying a frozen number inside it. - Original: [Open source]() UNHCR keeps the Sahel on a live counter — but its largest single figure has not moved in three years. The regional portal counts about five million people of concern, with roughly 3.2 million refugees and asylum-seekers and 3.2 million displaced inside their own borders. Nearly four in five of its refugees are hosted in Chad and Mauritania, driven largely by other wars. Its largest single figure — Burkina Faso's two-million IDP count — is dated March 2023 and has not moved, frozen ever since the country stopped publishing official tallies. UNHCR frames the trajectory as still climbing, projecting a broader 'Sahel Plus' region to hold 5.6 million forcibly displaced by the end of 2026 — a projection, on a wider map, not a current count. Three incompatible headline totals must not be merged. #### Takeaways - The regional total is not the Central Sahel; three incompatible headline totals must not be merged. - Burkina Faso's two-million figure is frozen at March 2023 — a data gap, not a plateau. - The 5.6M end-2026 figure is a Sahel-Plus projection; treat funding-urgency language as own-position. #### Visual provenance - Caption: A live page with a frozen number: UNHCR counts about five million people of concern, but its largest single figure — Burkina Faso's two-million IDP count — has carried a March 2023 date, unchanged, since official tallies stopped. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: UNHCR's regional figures, with Burkina Faso's IDP count frozen since March 2023. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The deadliest region is in Niger, and the army is in the ledger. - Registry ID: `sah-acled-2026` - Publisher: ACLED - Source type: research - Published: 2026-01-13 - Registry title: Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview - Editorial note: The war as an event ledger — with state-force killing counted, not equated. - Original: [Open source]() ACLED reads the Sahel as an event ledger, and in 2026 the deadliest line in it is Niger's Tillabéri. It records more than 1,200 recorded fatalities in Tillabéri in 2025, outstripping every region of Mali and Burkina Faso. ACLED's own coding attributes that violence first to the Islamic State's Sahel Province, then to operations by the Nigerien military, then to the al-Qaeda-aligned JNIM — state-force killing counted in the same ledger, without ACLED equating it to jihadist attack. ACLED counts events and reported fatalities, not OCHA humanitarian units — different instruments measuring different things, and the moment they are summed the count becomes fiction. The 1,200 is a Tillabéri figure, not an all-Sahel total. #### Takeaways - ACLED units (events, reported fatalities) are never merged with OCHA humanitarian counts. - State-force killing is counted alongside jihadist attack without being equated. - The 1,200 is a Tillabéri figure; the ISSP–JNIM rivalry is a core reason regional aggregation misleads. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The deadliest line in the ledger is Niger's Tillabéri: more than 1,200 recorded fatalities in 2025 — led by the Islamic State's Sahel Province, then the Nigerien military, then JNIM. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: Tillabéri, Niger, over 1,200 recorded fatalities in 2025. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Forty-one per cent of a continent's dead. - Registry ID: `sah-africacenter-2026` - Publisher: Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) - Source type: research - Published: 2026-04-06 - Registry title: Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking - Editorial note: A US-government vantage point, attributed as such — a fatality share, not a displacement count. - Original: [Open source]() The Africa Center — a research arm inside the US Department of Defense — keeps a third count, and reports a region losing ground. It reports 23,968 people killed across Africa in 2025, up a quarter on the year, with the Sahel alone holding 41 per cent of the dead — a share it has held for five straight years. Within the region it puts Burkina Faso at roughly half, Mali above 29 per cent and Niger at 17, and attributes 78 per cent of the region's militant-Islamist-linked fatalities to the JNIM coalition. The framing is bureaucratic and the vantage point is a government's, attributed as such — not a neutral monitor, though it uses ACLED-type data. Its event counts and fatality counts must stay separate units, and its perpetrator shares are its own coding, not a legal finding. #### Takeaways - A US-DoD-linked source, attributed as such — a fatality share, not a displacement count. - Event counts and fatality counts are separate units; the JNIM 78% share is its own coding. - The Sahel has led all African regions for militant-Islamist deaths for five years running. #### Visual provenance - Caption: A Pentagon count: the Sahel held 41 per cent of all militant-Islamist-linked deaths in Africa in 2025 — of an Africa-wide 23,968 — a position it has held for five straight years. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the Sahel holds 41 per cent of Africa's militant-Islamist-linked deaths. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The abuses no one should average. - Registry ID: `sah-hrw-2026` - Publisher: Human Rights Watch - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2026-04-02 - Registry title: Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali) - Editorial note: The two abuse axes attributed and unequal — the largest single incident is state-force. - Original: [Open source]() Human Rights Watch documents who kills civilians on two axes, and the honesty is in keeping them attributed and unequal. After interviewing more than 450 people, it found that in Burkina Faso the military, its allied militias and JNIM together killed more than 1,800 civilians since 2023 — a documented-incident floor it calls possibly the tip of the iceberg. The single largest incident in that record is a state-force one: the Burkinabè military and allied militias killed more than 400 civilians near Djibo in December 2023. The deadliest single jihadist massacre HRW verified is smaller — at least 133 civilians killed by JNIM at Barsalogho in August 2024. In Mali the pattern is army-plus-Wagner: HRW documented dozens of summary executions and enforced disappearances of ethnic Fulani men since January 2025, including as many as 65 executed near Sebabougou, corroborated by the UN. Every number carries a name, an attribution and a date; HRW is an advocacy monitor, and its legal terms are attributed, not the file's own verdict. #### Takeaways - No false parity — the single largest documented incident (400+, Djibo) is a state-force one. - The deadliest single jihadist massacre HRW verified is Barsalogho (at least 133). - Figures are documented floors, not comprehensive tolls; the juntas reject the characterisations. #### Visual provenance - Caption: Two axes, attributed and unequal: more than 1,800 civilians killed in Burkina Faso since 2023, with the single largest documented incident — 400+ near Djibo — a state-force one, beside the deadliest jihadist massacre HRW verified, at least 133 at Barsalogho. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the largest single documented incident (400+, Djibo, state forces) beside the deadliest jihadist massacre HRW verified (133, Barsalogho). - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Naming the perpetrator, not blurring it. - Registry ID: `sah-amnesty-2026` - Publisher: Amnesty International - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2026-07-02 - Registry title: Human Rights in West and Central Africa - Editorial note: A parallel ledger naming each perpetrator separately; three states leaving the ICC. - Original: [Open source]() Amnesty keeps a running account of the Central Sahel where the perpetrator is named, not blurred — and records the states filing to leave the ICC. It attributes each column separately: the army and its VDP militia at Solenzo, where at least 58 unarmed civilians were killed; the Malian army and Wagner near Kwala, where about 60 of 100 detainees were shot; and, in the other columns, roughly 34 civilians killed by the Islamic State in the Sahel and about 100 soldiers by GSIM at Djibo. State-force and jihadist abuses are attributed separately, with no merged totals. In June 2026 Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger deposited notifications to withdraw from the ICC, effective a year later, which Amnesty frames as entrenching impunity. It is an advocacy monitor; its characterisations are its own, attributed, and the juntas reject them. #### Takeaways - State-force and jihadist abuses attributed separately — no merged totals. - The ICC withdrawal is an accountability development, not a casualty figure. - Testimony-based figures keep their uncertainty bands; 2025-report figures are not current-2026 counts. #### Visual provenance - Caption: In June 2026 all three states filed to leave the International Criminal Court, effective a year later — which Amnesty frames as entrenching impunity for crimes it says it has documented for over a decade. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger deposit ICC withdrawal notifications in June 2026. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The war that moved into the capitals. - Registry ID: `sah-icg-2026` - Publisher: International Crisis Group - Source type: research - Published: 2026-02-20 - Registry title: Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals - Editorial note: The crisis as one interlocking system — territorial-control assessments, not incident logs. - Original: [Open source]() The International Crisis Group reads the Central Sahel as one interlocking system rather than three local fights. In September 2025 JNIM cut the fuel supply to Bamako — a city of over four million — impeding commerce for months; by 2026 a siege of the capital's roads had followed. In the first half of 2025 the group laid siege to as many as forty towns in Burkina Faso, and Crisis Group assesses that it now controls vast areas of Mali, holds swathes of Burkina Faso, and runs a light administration that levies taxes and dispenses its own justice. The three governments are coup-installed juntas that formed the Alliance of Sahel States and launched a 5,000-strong joint force in December 2025 — first units operational, but far from full capacity. Crisis Group is careful with blame: jihadists and state forces, the army and its Russian partners alike, all named. Its territorial-control figures are expert assessments, not incident logs. #### Takeaways - The crisis is interlocking, not local; ICG's control and 'as many as 40' figures are assessments, not logs. - The AES 5,000-troop force is the alliance's own figure, 'far from full capacity.' - Hard casualty tolls must come from ACLED, OHCHR and OCHA, not from the framing. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The war moved into the cities: JNIM cut Bamako's fuel supply in September 2025 and laid siege to as many as 40 towns in Burkina Faso in the first half of 2025 — Crisis Group's assessments, not incident logs. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: JNIM's fuel blockade of Bamako and siege of as many as 40 Burkinabé towns. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### An assistance ledger running dry. - Registry ID: `sah-wfp-2026` - Publisher: World Food Programme - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-01-16 - Registry title: West Africa / Central Sahel emergency — assistance ledger - Editorial note: An assistance ledger running dry — regional figures that hide the three-country differences. - Original: [Open source]() WFP renders the region as an assistance ledger collapsing where the money runs out — and its headline figures are on the wider map. Its regional numbers — 55 million projected into crisis hunger over the 2026 lean season, 13 million children facing malnutrition — are West-and-Central-Africa totals, not Central Sahel, and must not be substituted for the three-country figures. Where money ran out, reach collapsed: in Nigeria from 1.3 million assisted to 72,000. In Mali, where rations were cut, WFP records acute hunger surging 64 per cent since 2023. The Central Sahel food figure sits underneath: 11.4 million needing critical food assistance, 2.7 million in acute crisis or worse. And there is a hole even in the three-country picture — Burkina Faso, arguably the hardest-hit state, ran no Cadre Harmonisé food-security session this cycle, so any regional hunger figure structurally under-counts it. #### Takeaways - The 55M / 13M figures are West-&-Central-Africa, not Central Sahel — regional aggregation hides the differences. - The Burkina Faso data gap under-counts the hardest-hit state. - The appeal is the frame; the withdrawal of assistance underneath it is the story. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The food ledger, on the three-country map: 11.4 million need critical food assistance, 2.7 million in acute crisis or worse, 401,000 children in severe acute malnutrition — not the Sahel-wide 15.4 million projection. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 2.7 million in acute food crisis in the Central Sahel, 401,000 children in severe acute malnutrition. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Analysis shelf ### Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview - Publisher: UN OCHA - Type: report - Why it matters: The three-country ledger that must be kept apart from the Sahel-wide dashboard. - Position note: Humanitarian source; appeal-driven; names no perpetrator. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The three-country count, on the correct map. - Alt text: People displaced by conflict receiving food rations in Bamako, Mali. - Credit: DFID — UK Department for International Development - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Sahel — abuses by all sides - Publisher: Human Rights Watch - Type: investigation - Why it matters: The two attributed abuse axes — and the finding that the single largest documented incident is a state-force one. - Position note: Advocacy monitor; documented floors, legal terms attributed. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Attributed and unequal. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: two abuse axes. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking - Publisher: Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US DoD) - Type: dataset - Why it matters: The fatality-share count that has put the Sahel first in Africa for five years — from a US-government vantage point. - Position note: US-DoD-linked research; attributed as such, not a neutral monitor. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: A fatality share, not a displacement count. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: 41 per cent. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Sahel program — the interlocking system - Publisher: International Crisis Group - Type: investigation - Why it matters: The strategic reading — Bamako's siege, forty besieged towns, the AES break with ECOWAS — as one system, not three local fights. - Position note: Think-tank analysis; territorial assessments, not incident logs. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The war that moved into the capitals. - Alt text: Editorial data surface: the Bamako siege. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Media shelf ### The Sahel region of Africa — map - Publisher: Wikimedia Commons - Type: media - Why it matters: The ecological belt across the continent — the map that swallows the three-country crisis. - Position note: Reusable CC BY-SA asset; geography, not the security theatre. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The belt is continent-wide; the crisis is three countries. - Alt text: Map of the Sahel region of Africa. - Credit: Wikimedia Commons contributors - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### West Africa / Central Sahel emergency - Publisher: World Food Programme - Type: media - Why it matters: The food-assistance ledger collapsing where money runs out — with the three-country figures held apart from the regional ones. - Position note: Humanitarian source; regional aggregation hides the three-country differences. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: An assistance ledger running dry. - Alt text: A sack of food aid awaiting distribution at a WFP site in Bamako, Mali. - Credit: DFID — UK Department for International Development - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Open questions - Keep the two maps apart at all times — a Central Sahel figure must never be laid out as if it were the Sahel-wide one; caption which map each number belongs to. - Present the two abuse axes so each is attributed to its body (HRW / Amnesty / ACLED / OHCHR) and neither wording nor UI implies equal evidential weight — while still recording that the largest single documented incident is a state-force one. - Refresh every rolling figure at publication day with a fresh as-of date (OCHA / UNHCR / ACLED / WFP dashboards); re-confirm the access-blocked primary pages in a browser. - Close the source-standpoint labels on display: the Africa Center is US-DoD-linked, OCHA/UNHCR/WFP are appeal-driven, HRW/Amnesty are advocacy, ACLED is proprietary and rolling. - Treat the withdrawal of France and the UN as at most an accelerant, and Wagner's exit as continuity under a rebrand — neither as a single cause nor a settled fact. ## Source registry - `sah-ocha-2026` — [UN OCHA — Burkina Faso, Mali and Western Niger Humanitarian Overview](); humanitarian; 2026-04-29 - `sah-unhcr-2026` — [UNHCR — Sahel emergency — narrative and Operational Data Portal](); humanitarian; 2026-06-29 - `sah-acled-2026` — [ACLED — Central Sahel political violence — Africa Overview](); research; 2026-01-13 - `sah-africacenter-2026` — [Africa Center for Strategic Studies (US Department of Defense) — Sahel militant-Islamist violence tracking](); research; 2026-04-06 - `sah-hrw-2026` — [Human Rights Watch — Sahel — abuses by all sides (Burkina Faso; Mali)](); human\_rights; 2026-04-02 - `sah-amnesty-2026` — [Amnesty International — Human Rights in West and Central Africa](); human\_rights; 2026-07-02 - `sah-icg-2026` — [International Crisis Group — Sahel program — the war that moved into the capitals](); research; 2026-02-20 - `sah-wfp-2026` — [World Food Programme — West Africa / Central Sahel emergency — assistance ledger](); humanitarian; 2026-01-16